A No-Law Sermon by C. W. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 15, 1877

“A No-Law Sermon.”

By C. W. S.

Our brother of the Herald of Truth asks us what we mean by the expression, “no-law sermon,” and he tells us what he thinks it should mean as follows: “Whatsoever is set forth of God, then, of necessity, must be a law, and is in full force until it blends with, and is finally lost to sight in, the glory of a law of a higher nature. Christ is that higher law that God hath set before us. A no-law sermon, then, must be a sermon without, in any part, referring to Christ. How can that be done? Will our brother of the ADVENT REVIEW please to explain the meaning of the term?”

Certainly, we will do so with pleasure. In the first place we will remark that the words are not used in a figurative sense. Secondly, the term law, as used in the instance referred to, has reference to the law of God. Thirdly, therefore the words, no-law sermon, designate a discourse advocating the doctrine that the law of God is abolished.

Now we have yet to learn where Christ is said to be a “higher law” than that which his Father pronounced in majesty from Sinai. We have yet to learn where Christ claims to supersede that law. But we can readily find where Christ said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.” Instead of putting the law into the shade, he fulfilled the words of the prophet that declared that he should “magnify the law, and make it honorable.” Instead of being “lost to sight” the law is made to shine forth with increased brilliancy by the teachings of Christ.

“Ye have heard,” said he, “that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” Here the Saviour referred directly to that law that he had just declared should not pass away; and in commenting upon the sixth commandment he increased the force of it, he magnified it. This for an example.

We know where the law was “lost to sight.” Instead of being lost to sight in a law of a higher nature, it was obscured by the clouds of the dark ages, when the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2: 3-8) thought to change “times and laws” (Dan. 7: 25), and thus exalt himself above all that is called God. 2 Thess. 2: 4. C. W. S.